Tim Cook is in the kitchen, tweaking Apple’s recipes

Even if you’ve got a short attention span have the annoying habit of leaving a “tl;dr” comment on long-form articles, settle back in your chair and read this engrossing piece on how Tim Cook is changing Apple, written in Fortune for Adam Lashinsky.

Those who’ve worried that Cook will be unable to sustain Apple’s remarkable momentum should also take the time to read it. It won’t necessarily assuage your fears, but it does indicate that Cook understands what must be done to keep Apple’s ship afloat.

Even irrational Apple haters will want to read it, because it also shines a light on the company’s potential obstacles, which are many and challenging.

Lashinsky provides several examples of Cook’s making his mark, ranging from attending a meeting of investors at Apple (something Steve Jobs would never have done), to making a personal visit to China to inspect the Foxconn factories to approving a dividend for investors and a buyback of Apple stock.

Apple’s financials continue to be stellar, and that success could largely be laid at Cook’s feet even before Jobs’ death last year. Cook is a manufacturing and supply chain wizard, responsible for Apple’s super-efficient – and profitable – approach to large-scale production of its hardware. His approach has resulted in Apple products having among the highest margins in the personal technology business.

But as Lashinsky point out, we have yet to see Cook’s influence on what really counts – the products Apple introduces.

Cook can’t take all the credit for those results. He took over a company with the momentum of a rocket ship in midflight. What’s more, Cook hasn’t yet unveiled a significantly new product, the key measure of sustained innovation that observers are intensely watching for. The only major product introductions so far: The iPhone 4S, which features the Siri voice-activated assistant, and an iPad with better screen resolution, both iterations of previous devices.

One of those products, Siri, has had quality issues that are very un-Apple-like, Lashinsky notes:

The ultimate “tell” of tectonic changes at Apple will be the quality of its products. Those looking for deficiencies have found them in Siri, a less-than-perfect product that Apple released with the rare beta label in late 2011, a signal that the service shouldn’t be viewed as fully baked. Siri’s response time has been slow, meaning the servers and software powering it are inadequate. “People are embarrassed by Siri,” says one former insider. “Steve would have lost his mind over Siri.”

But those who have seen what’s in Apple’s pipeline say that earth-shaking things are indeed coming. Lashinsky quotes from sources who’ve been privy to future products:

In many ways, though, Cook’s unspoken message is that life goes on and that Apple is still Apple. In mid-April the company took over the Carmel Valley Ranch hotel complex for its first ultra-secretive “Top 100″ meeting since Jobs died. The hush-hush conclave is a rare opportunity for top managers — not necessarily chosen by rank, but rather by the CEO’s assessment of who are the most valuable contributors at any given time — to learn what products and services are on tap for the next year and a half or so. Following tradition, Cook required his executives to travel the 80 miles from Cupertino to the resort on chartered buses so that their comings and goings could be controlled. He also asked several executives to make presentations to the group — just as Jobs had done.

A difference, according to multiple secondhand reports of the retreat, is that the spirit of the meeting was upbeat and even fun. Cook was said to be in a jovial, joke-cracking mood — a stark contrast to the grim and fearful tone Jobs engendered at the meetings. Participants left the Top 100 energized about Apple’s near-term outlook, presumably having seen Apple’s next iPhone and perhaps its long-awaited television product too. One veteran executive was “blown away” by what he had seen, says someone this executive spoke to afterward. Reports another person with access to top-level Apple executives: “People came away totally comfortable with where the company is headed.”

As someone who is fascinated by Apple and the influence it holds over the personal tech industry, I found Lashinsky’s article compelling, and it changed my mind a bit about Cook. I thought of him primarily as a caretaker who’d be able to ride Apple’s momentum, and perhaps help sustain it with greater efficiencies, but would not really be able to provide the vision for world-changing products over the long term.

But what’s obvious from this piece is that Cook seems to understand that carefully nurturing Apple’s corporate culture and the people it has in place – such as chief designer Jonathan Ive and iOS czar Scott Forstall – will provide the vision that he may or may not have. He’s making the supporting human and physical infrastructure more capable of sustaining Apple’s momentum. The question is whether making Apple more corporate will allow for its creative types to “think different”.

I think we’ll know if he’s succeeded about three years from now, but there are so many other factors, not the least of which is competition and the global economy. But Cook’s making the right moves, if Lashinsky’s reporting is accurate.

Update: Lashinsky discusses Cook’s challenges in a Fortune video. (Unfortunately, the embedded video won’t play here, for some reason.)